Embodiments of the present invention relates generally to payment processing, and more specifically to integration of a card reader device with point of sale systems to process payment information.
Today consumers have different ways to purchase goods or services from a particular merchant. Many merchants today accept payments for transactions through their websites as well as at their physical point-of-sale (POS) terminals. These types of transactions may not be processed in the same manner, but can be communicated to a third party payment processing system for processing of payment information. For example, goods and services may be purchased from the merchant remotely over the Internet or may be purchased in person at a store operated by the merchant. In a store, merchants may operate traditional, fixed point of sale (POS) system through which a customer can complete a retail transaction to provide payment to the merchant in exchange for goods or services. However, stationary POS systems do not enable mobility because of dependency on equipment needed to support operation of the POS system.
The advent of reader devices, such as Square®, have enabled use of mobile computing devices to conduct payment transactions. However, such implementations involve implementation of custom software or applications that are configured to process payment information for a merchant. These reader devices may not afford users control over look and experience. Further, reader devices do not enable merchants control over functions accessible by a merchant's commerce system, such as receipt handling and checkout processes. Many reader devices limit functionality to applications provider by a manufacturer or seller of the reader device. As such, merchants are unable to integrate existing point of sale systems with reader devices for a complete and integrated mobile point of sale system. Solutions are needed to communicate the payment information obtained via a card reader device to a third party payment processing system (e.g., a third party service provider) to a process transactions. A system is needed in which a merchant can leverage functions of an existing merchant commerce system to handle processing of payment information obtained from a reader device integrated with computing device.
Embodiments of the present invention solve these problems and other problems individually and collectively.